Scandalousness restored: Why season five of Scandal brings show back on top

SPOILER ALERT: If you have not yet watched Season 4 or 5 Scandal, stop reading now––you have been warned.

There is one thing that all religious Gladiators agree on: season four of Scandal was disappointing. Tremendously.

Political Fixer Olivia Pope, played by Kerry Washington, was kidnapped and tortured. First Lady Mellie Grant, played by Bellamy Young, became the junior senator of Virginia, and Rowan Pope, played by Joe Morton, was put in jail. Mellie and former Chief-of-Staff Cyrus Beene, played by Jeff Perry, were kicked out the White House for knowing about Rowan’s conspiracy to murder a bus full of jury members for the B613 case.

Although the content of season four was monumental, the execution fell short of Gladiator expectations.

Georgia Nicklin ’16 has watched the show all the way through and expressed her disappointment.

“In season four, I thought that there was more of Olivia Pope needing to be saved rather than Olivia Pope and the Gladiators saving other people, which is what I originally loved about the show,” Nicklin said.

There’s no question that season four of Scandal was different. In fact, season four of Scandal lacked scandal.

However, based on the first four episodes of season five, Scandal seems to be back on track.

Olivia Pope and Associates gain civil rights activist Marcus Walker, played by Cornelius Smith Jr., and they are handling everything in their way, especially the press coverage of Olivia’s affair with Fitz.

There are murders that have meaning to the central plot, such as the murder of the Princess of Caledonia in Episode One.

Episode Four left off with Fitz pushing through a crowd of press to take his “girlfriend” Olivia on a date, and Mellie, approaching a committee of women in the Senate, suspensefully alluded to her agreement to impeach her husband.

Although Olivia used to be the fixer and now is the one that needs fixing, season five of Scandal is headed back in the right direction.